The order number of this album might suggest a run-of-the-mill
Naxos issue; so might the presence of conductor Antoni Wit,
one of that label's mainstays. But the origins of this release
are more complex. It's actually a co-production of the Idil
Biret Archive (IBA), devoted to assembling and releasing the
recordings of that Turkish pianist, and the BMP imprint of Bilkent
University, home of the present orchestra, the Bilkent Symphony.
HNH Records, Naxos's parent company, is handling distribution.
The veteran Biret, in these performances, concentrates on making
the passagework really tell, etching the notes starkly and vividly.
Playing "all the notes" is the virtuoso's stock in
trade; but here the purpose of those notes within the larger-scale
musical design is highlighted. In the dancing figurations in
the first movement of the Grieg, for example, she makes a point
of striking the indicated accents crisply, while maintaining
the line's forward impulse. In Schumann's finale, the scalework
leading into the second subject is sufficiently firm that the
orchestral pickups can dovetail with it precisely - impressive,
after numerous more-or-less approximate renderings of that transition.
In her pursuit of clarity, Biret favors more measured tempi
than most in the outer movements of the Schumann. They're not
really "too slow," though the first movement occasionally
seems so, because of her sometimes square, even accentuations
and austere pedalling of the rippling accompaniments. The finale,
on the other hand, acquires a stately dimension lacking in the
usual bounding romp. The tempi in the Grieg hew more closely
to convention, though with an added measure of breadth -- the
soloist is clearly determined not to be too casual!
Biret also has a nice feel for the ebb and flow of the lyric
lines, shaping them sensitively with a natural, spontaneous-sounding
rubato, but they point up an unexpected technical shortcoming.
While she brings a pearly, attractive tone to soft passages,
she can't seem to expand it comfortably. Time and again, the
peak note of a phrase will harden unpleasantly, where I suspect
she's trying to make it bloom and expand. The chordal passages
ring out more freely - Biret gets some arm weight behind them
- but that at the start of the Schumann, even so, remains a
touch clangorous.
Once again, Antoni Wit proves adept at getting a lower-tier
orchestra - here, the Bilkent Symphony - to play with warm,
polished tone and expressive involvement. And he knows how to
use orchestral emphases to mitigate, or perhaps obscure, Biret's
sometimes hard tone, as in the opening paragraph of Schumann's
Intermezzo movement. The sound offers both warmth and
clarity.
Assuming you're still in the market for these warhorses, if
you want beguiling tone at every moment, you must seek out Radu
Lupu's Decca coupling - where André Previn and the LSO provide
rich support - or hunt down Artur Rubinstein's recordings on
separate Sony/BMG (originally RCA) programs. Devotees of Biret,
and other "explorers," however, will find much to
enjoy here.
Stephen Francis Vasta
Stephen Francis Vasta is a New York-based conductor, coach,
and journalist
see also review by John
Sheppard
Idil Biret (piano) 
